NEWS: Luca George: Public Sculpture In The Round @ Tyneside Cinema

Luca George’s discussion centres around public art and its uses

By Helen Redfern
on Thursday, August 30th, 2018

Image: Come and Have A Go If You Think You’re Hard Enough by Luca George

If you’ve ever found yourself asking, ‘Who is public art aimed at and why is it there?’, as I did surveying Ryan Gander’s To Give Light outside the BALTIC recently, then artist Luca George may have some answers for you.

Public art is simply that: art made public. It’s usually outside and therefore accessible to all. Public art brings art to the masses – whether they want it or not – and these cultural interventions provoke mixed response. Public art invites community engagement but cannot demand it, so what is the etiquette for approaching and appreciating public art?

Public art is art in any media, but Luca George is focussing in on sculpture in particular in a performance-cum-lecture at Tyneside Cinema on Thursday 6th September. George examines public art on Tyneside that’s defined as public sculpture in the round – i.e. standing free with all sides shown, rather than carved in relief against a ground.

Luca George’s engaging and thought-provoking performance is based around videos of the artist interacting with the sculptures on the streets across our region. Drawing on an archive of documentation, the lecture details who made these sculptures, how they got there and what they are supposed to mean, before the facts give way to speculation and fantasy…could these public sculptures in fact be portals that allow for interdimensional time travel? When you’ve heard what Luca George has to say, you’re never going to look at public art in the same way again!